


Empty

by orphan_account



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, F/M, Tragedy, Tranquility, sad things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-19 03:18:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4730888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lavellan goes away on a standard mission, the first excursion to the Hissing Wastes, and comes back changed. Solas has been waiting anxiously, and despairs at the turn of events.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Empty

It was standard procedure, every night, whilst he slept, he kept watch over her, trailing behind, to ward off the dreams of darkness and death and despair. Some nights it was harder, she was already tangled in the poison embrace of sorrow, of guilt, and it took all he had to wrench her from it, to drag her up into places of quiet forests and tall trees. She had taken Dorian, Cassandra and Cole with her, grey eyes glinting in a smile as they rode off, three on sturdy chestnut stallions, and she, the Inquisitor, on the massive hart, comically dwarfed by its size, the horns of the great beast wider than she was tall. He teased her about it sometime, her shortness, the circumference of her thin wrists, how easy it was, in a moment of gaiety and joy that surely he did not deserve, not with her, to sweep her up in his arms and press kisses on her face, her neck, her hands.

_They had been so blissfully happy._

Solas had thought that he had forgotten how to trust, how to care deeply without the edge of fear and danger, and the readiness to run. He could run. He did not wish to.

_It was agony._

When she left without him, a shy smile on her lips, sun glinting of her polished staff and armor, turning her auburn hair a mass of liquid fire, his stomach turned sour, and he almost reached out, shouted something, because if she was a part from him then something could happen to her and he would not, could not-

_Calm yourself._

It was foolish. She would be safe, always had been. Sometimes she had returned to him with a new scar, or bruises mottling her side, but she was always whole, so beautifully whole and he did not know what he would do when the end came, when they confronted the magister that had he had willingly, foolishly, given his orb, because she had burrowed herself so deeply into his heart that he knew that when he removed her, pushed himself away to keep her safe, she does not deserve this, that it would surely kill him eventually. He wasn’t sure what he’d do without her.

_He knew now._

He thought that surely, with the blood on his hands, the task he must do, the centuries of pain he had caused, that surely, surely he did not deserve this, to be looked at with such love. She smiled when he called her _vhenan_.

_Vhenan? Where are you Vhenan?_

He had lain down, in a moment of foolish lovesickness, on the large bed in her quarters, because he missed her, missed her dearly. The Hissing Wastes were a long journey and he knew that it was to be expected, that it would take weeks, perhaps months, for her to return, but he still ached for her. He slept, and waited.

_He waited so long._

Her sleep patterns were erratic, at best. The anchor kept her awake, flickering and stinging, green cracks like veins on her pale skin, and when it wasn’t the anchor, it was letters, summons and personal inquiries, and everything in-between. He knew where to find her in the Fade. He sat, eyes closed, and waited. On a normal evening he would simply follow, quietly at her heel if he was needed but tonight the ache in his chest was like a knife and he just needed to know if she was safe, if she was alright, because if she could not see her for another day he would surely go mad.

**_He waited so long._ **

He woke the next morning, he had searched, searched until he ventured far from the quiet forests that she roamed, that they roamed, into the bloody battlefields and the abandoned cities, because perhaps she has gone further, maybe she was looking for him, had he missed her? Ignored a fleeting shadow as she walked a different path? But he calmed. She was alright, she always was.

The date of their planned arrival passed, as did another week, before during the dining hour, whilst Solas stood on the battlements, the stars his only company, saw the lone flicker of a magelight in the distance. He was still for many minutes, breath tight in his chest. Every night he had searched for her, called out, attracting only spirits and wisps. He hunted for her in wolf form some nights, hoping to catch her sent, the only time in his memory that anyone had hoped that the Dread Wolf catch someone’s scent, but met only the half-dead trails from weeks ago.

The party was close now, and in the glimmering pale moonlight he could see them, three horses, one hart, and the figures that rode them. He almost wept in relief, when he could not find her he thought that perhaps, that maybe-No. He would not entertain the thought. His Vhenan was safe and here, and his chest filled with a great gladness. They passed through the dappled shadowy gates, met only with a few shouts and exclamations, with a few guards scurrying towards the great hall, to inform the inner circle of her return. He was already halfway down the steps to the lower courtyard before they dismounted, and he was almost to her hart, surely she would be weary after the journey, before Dorian stopped him.

“Solas,” the man’s voice was tired and pained, his brow furrowed, half cast in shadow, half in milky white light. “Solas, I’m so sorry.” His breath caught in his chest, and the words were almost out of his mouth, don’t be sorry, it was only a week delay, you could have sent a raven ahead, but it’s alright, you’re all here. Did you find much in the Wastes?

“Is everything alright, messere?”

He nearly choked on the sorrow that rose like bile in his throat. He knew that tone, the flatness that came with the quenching of a spirit. He turned, and the only thing he could do know was stare, stare at the sunburst brand on her forehead, stare at the flat eyes, grey and dreary as the winter sky. He stumbled back, aghast at the sight even though it was so familiar.

His _vhenan_ stared back, and his hands were shaking even as he drove his fingernails into them, jaw clenching in anger, in rage, in sorrow. This was not supposed to happen, he was supposed to protect her, was supposed to be there for her. Whoever had done this would pay. Whoever that had known that this would happen would pay. He’d raze the entirety of Thedas if it would remove the brand, remove the mark that stared at him from her pale forehead.  
He turned, because if he looked into those grey eyes, whose mirth and love had been quenched, he would lose himself, and he was not sure when he would come back.

There was a hand on his shoulder now, Cole, and he did not move to push it away because if he tried he knew that he would fall to his knees and scream in grief.

“Her last thoughts were of you .Wrists bound, mouth dry, the sand is too hot. Solas? The air thick and the blindfold thicker, the heat drains strength, the magebane drains strength. Solas, Solas where are you I need you I need to see you again I need to tell you again it can’t end like this. The brand is bright, sun burning into vision, Solas, wait please I need to see him again please no please anything I’ll do anything- Solas! Gone. Empty empty nothing left, head hot, palms sweating. Empty.” He was frozen, eyes wide in a mask of pain of grief and if he could kill Cole for not saving her, end Cassandra for not protecting her, banish Dorian back to Tevinter so he never could see him again because they had failed, they had all failed, he had failed. He deserved this, she did not.

“Messere? Are you alright Messere?”

He fell to his knees now. He could not help it. He could not help her this time. He wept. He wept. He screamed.

He had once joked that he would be interested to see what happened when her indomitable will was dominated. He wished he had never found out now.

**Author's Note:**

> So I had the urge to write some nice Solas/Lavellan thing, and this came out. Sorry. Let me know if you want some kind of fix-it fic, because damn I think I hurt myself writing this.


End file.
